OPINION: Anxiety is more than worrying

Anxiety isn’t just worrying — it’s something that follows you around every day like a lost puppy. When you go into an anxiety attack, it feels as though a rope is taken to your throat, causing you to breathe as if you just got done running 10 miles.

Anxiety brings you to the point where you shut the door to your room, shove your dresser in front of it and close the blinds to hide your face from the world because the world can never know who you really are. The world expects a person like you to live every day as though your life is perfect. Anxiety makes you doubt God has enough strength to get you through another night full of debating whether these thoughts are real or not. It keeps you up till three in the morning because if you sleep, you’ll have another nightmare about the ones you love dying around you.

Anxiety puts chains on you to confine you to your bed because if you get up, something could happen. You see, anxiety controls you. It controls how you think, act and feel. People don’t understand why you are this way because they can’t see it. So believe me when I say anxiety is much more than worrying.